


how to be dead

by idergollasper



Category: La casa de papel | Money Heist (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everyone is tired, F/M, Ghosts, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:06:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24801310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idergollasper/pseuds/idergollasper
Summary: Sergio sees ghosts.
Relationships: Berlin | Andrés de Fonollosa & Professor | Sergio Marquina, Berlin | Andrés de Fonollosa/Palermo | Martín Berrote, Not Really, Palermo | Martín Berrote & Professor | Sergio Marquina, Palermo | Martín Berrote/Professor | Sergio Marquina, Raquel Murillo/Professor | Sergio Marquina
Comments: 13
Kudos: 88





	how to be dead

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is set during the beginning of s3, bear with me if there are any inaccuracies I wrote this at 1 am. Kudos/comments greatly appreciated <3 enjoy!

Sergio sees ghosts.

The monastery is bigger than he remembers, not that he remembers much of it at all, besides what he’s here for. It takes more than a few laps to remember his way through the halls. They’re familiar, yes, but Sergio doesn’t  _ know  _ them the way he used to, doesn’t belong here and hasn’t since he left. He doesn’t understand the uneasiness he feels in the brief moments when he’s alone. He honestly doesn’t want to. 

But he can still see. 

He can see the dust-coated pillars, the way the floor caves into itself where it previously hadn’t. Everything is older, more tired now, water dripping from a corner of the high ceiling and seeping through his shirt. The tile gets cold at night but Sergio walks with no shoes on; he paces, tries to make his way beyond the fuzziness of his eyes.

Is this how he had tread before? Mary stares down at him from her place on the stained glass, arms outstretched. Outside, the wind picks up speed. A tree branch, a bird, something throws itself against the wall from the courtyard.

“Andrés?” He asks to empty air, and immediately claps a hand over his mouth. 

He cannot deny the echo.

Once, when he was a boy, his father had come home from a bad robbery and smashed a plate against the wall. He cut his hand on a piece of it trying to get the broom. Everything after that is blurred over with the dull pulsing of a bad childhood memory, except his father’s words as he cried and bled onto the floor:  _ nothing would’ve happened if you hadn’t tried to help. _

He remembers them now, watching Martín crack in front of him, trying not to wince at the sound of shit falling off the shelves. And it  _ is  _ shit, Martín’s entire  _ room _ is full of shit, discarded bottles and broken records. He brushes the glass off his hands, stalks toward Sergio like a wild animal. 

“You left him in there,” he says, gripping at Sergio’s arms so hard he thinks he’s bruising under his jacket. He can smell the vodka on Martín’s breath. “You  _ left him in there. _ ” 

“I-”  _ I couldn’t have. He’s behind you, he’s in the window, he-  _ “I’m sorry.”

“I loved him.” 

“I know.” 

“He’s gone because of you.” Sergio swallows hard.

“I know.”

When Martín leans forward Sergio expects a punch to the jaw, not lips against his own, and he’s shoving away before he can process what’s happening, hands scrabbling for purchase on the table behind him. Martín is trembling, eyes wide. Sergio takes in the ash of his face, the thinness around his cheekbones. 

He thinks of the skin around the wound, its pallor, blood dripping from his palm. He feels like he’s back in his father’s kitchen. He feels sick. 

“I can’t,” he says, finally, because it’s true, because he needs to hear something over the harshness of his own breath. Martín tilts his head and squints.

“You just look…” like what? Like someone easy? Like  **_him_ ** _? _

“I have to go.” Martín sways, looks like he’s about to keel over. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I…” Sergio backs up until he can’t anymore, spine pressing against the edge of the table, before he spins on his heel and stumbles out. There’s a crash behind the door, a chill at the base of his neck, creeping upward. He shivers. 

His shadow is spindly and dark along the marble. If he looks close enough, he can almost see another set of limbs. 

“I have blood,” he says one night. “I have blood on my hands.” Raquel stirs beside him, props herself up on her side with a hand. She is golden in the dim light of the setting sun, and Sergio is reminded that he doesn’t deserve her.

“Are you hurt?” Her voice is low and soft with sleep. 

“It’s not mine.” 

“Sergio… ” she takes his hands in hers, turns them over, intertwines their fingers when she understands their emptiness. “Is this about Berlin?”

_ Berlin.  _ Is this about  _ Berlin.  _ He almost wants to laugh.

“I’ve been-” he starts, and stops, and lowers his voice. “I’ve been noticing things. About this place.”  _ About the shift in the air when I walk into another room. About the eyes of the statues in the courtyard. About the way Martín looks at me, like he wants to swallow me whole, like he’s seeing straight through my eyes into someone else’s.  _ “I don’t think he- it- wants me here.” 

“You haven’t been sleeping,” Raquel says simply, ever the observer. “Come here.” He crawls into her arms like the guilty thing that he is, doesn’t realize his tears until she’s wiping them away. “You’re alright, love. You just need rest.” 

“I need-”  _ I need a fucking sedative. I need my brother. I need to know that not everyone around me dies.  _ “I need you _. _ ” 

“You have me.” He shudders. “Look,” says Raquel, holding his face in her hands, resting her forehead against his own. “I’m right here. Do you see me? I’m right here,” she repeats, and it’s hard not to believe her when she is warm, when her heart is beating through her t-shirt and into his ribcage, when she’s got one arm slung around his back and the other in between them, fingers stroking the side of his face, methodically carding through his hair. They settle- or, they try to, in a tangle of legs and discarded blankets. 

“I couldn’t save him,” he finally chokes out, after what could’ve been either minutes or days. “I can’t save you either-” but Raquel is already asleep, breathing even. He bites down on his tongue until he tastes copper. 

The curtains, whipping around each other, tangling and untangling in an endless war. Raquel turns away from him. He lets her go. The floorboards creak with invisible footsteps. The bedside lamp flickers, once, twice, before giving up, plunging the room into complete darkness. 

Sergio does not close his eyes. 


End file.
